A Mother Makes Coronavirus Look Cute

A Mother Makes Coronavirus Look Cute

Chicago, IL – April 7, 2020 – When her children asked “Why can’t we go to the park or see our friends anymore?” a Chicago mother, Marta Sytniewski decided to draw Funny and Cute Caricature illustrations about it, and made a YouTube video that can be initially perceived as insensitive or disrespectful.

The illustrations used in her “5 Possible Positive Outcomes and Cures for COVID-19” video truly are cute and funny, but should a deadly disease be depicted that way? People who are most affected by the outbreak may perceive her cheerful and light-hearted delivery as disrespectful and insensitive. The majority of information regarding COVID-19 warrants fear and depression, “I wanted to provide for my audience reasons for hope and to illustrate a better future” Marta says. The characters the artist drew for her video are caricature portraits of her three children. She depicts her son as being sick and her baby as taking medication. Before the quarantine Marta Sytniewski used to draw caricatures portraits professionally at Gurnee Mills Mall in IL.

The artist points out 5 positive outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic as summarized below.

Weather Effects. There is a slight chance that with the increase in temperature and humidity, the virus will weaken and become a seasonal occurrence.

Mutation: It is possible that if there will be no more people to infect; the virus will mutate to cooperate with our bodies, instead of harming them, or it will change to move on to other hosts.

Natural Immunity: People who were infected and have recovered from COVID-19 can become immune and no longer contagious.

Antiviral Drugs: It is possible that we will need to take antiviral medications only when we frequent areas that are at a high-risk for coronavirus, or when we become symptomatic.

Marta Sytniewski, is an artist and illustrator who drew custom caricature portraits professionally at the Gurnee Mills Mall in Illinois before the quarantine. Currently, she is selling her portraits on Fiverr. She has been trained in art privately by her mother, Anna Jelen, MFA, academically at the Northeastern Illinois University and independently through literature and practice, where she studied Classical European Portraiture and Figure Painting.